It’s not exactly news that the Republican-run Senate will not be friendly to [...]]]>
It’s not exactly news that the Republican-run Senate will not be friendly to the idea of removing a president who has made the economy hum like a bee. Did Nan really think that days of fake testimony from a bunch of snoozers during her inquiry phase was going to convince the public that Trump is a Putin puppet and/or Ukraine has undue influence in the White House?
It’s good to see Jeff Sessions out in public again since he is running for his old Senate seat (as I predicted he might when he was fired). He opined about the dynamics of the sudden withdrawal of the House from going forward with the wacko impeachment process that Pelosi initiated.
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: Jeff Sessions spent decades in the United States Senate before becoming the country’s Attorney General. He’s now running for Senate once again from the state of Alabama from which he joins us tonight. Senator, thanks so much for coming on. What do you make of this? What why are Democrats suddenly telling us after all these years that they don’t want to pass the articles on to the Senate?
JEFF SESSIONS: One reason may well be, Tucker, that they can imagine what it’s going to be like on the floor of the Senate. I remember when the Clinton impeachment went forward, and I was in the Senate.
Lindsey Graham was a congressman and one of the presenters, the managers of the case. They laid out, based on a record in the House, a detailed prosecution basically of three separate felonies that Clinton had committed, and I believe they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty, and I just can’t imagine what would happen when you end up with one of these vague charges like abuse of power or obstruction of justice.
It all could even be laughable — if they were going to back off, it would be so much better for America had they done it before they voted this impeachment. That does damage to our country to weaken the moral authority and the constitutional requirements of impeachment.
CARLSON: Well it’s also confusing as heck, if I can say, and bizarre — so they spend three years shouting about this, we go through the whole rigmarole of passing these charges in effect and now they’re telling us that they don’t want to press them. So why did they do that? Wouldn’t it have been easier is to keep screeching and not go through the process of impeachment?
SESSIONS: Absolutely. I thought they might even do that. Then it became clear to me, and the articles of impeachment themselves prove there’s not a basis for an impeachment here. It’s just an absolute abuse, and why they didn’t stop before they voted this way I cannot imagine. Now they made it even worse by voting impeachment, and now losing their nerve when they have to present on the weak case.
CARLSON: So you are running for Senate in Alabama, but as noted, you spent literally decades in the Senate. You know virtually everyone in it. So with the deep knowledge you have of the body, tell us how likely you think it is that if these charges make it to the Senate, the president will be convicted and removed.
SESSIONS: I think there’s zero chance. It’s so easy for Republicans to prove and establish, and they will in their speeches and in the record they produce that this is not a justifiable impeachment. The American people need to fully understand this is not a justifiable impeachment. Abuse of power because the president made me angry is not a basis for impeachment. (Continues)
Prof. Robert Epstein has warned against Google’s use of its Search function to influence voters [...]]]>
Prof. Robert Epstein has warned against Google’s use of its Search function to influence voters to embrace the liberal side.
Last July, the Senate held a hearing titled Google and Censorship through Search Engines where Dennis Prager testified that Youtube (owned by Google) had restricted access to 56 of PragerU’s 320 five-minute videos that explain history and politics to young people because schools have become so deficient.
Silicon Valley investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has accused Google of improperly working with Red China, including “the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the US military.”
On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson interviewed Floyd Brown, co-author of the new book Big Tech Tyrants.
Brown says he is “terrified” at the unbridled power of Big Tech — as well he should be.
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: So you’d think that we’d have a free press in this country — we’re guaranteed it in the Bill of Rights, but it’s not exactly free anymore. Big tech controls it and the tech companies are doing everything they can to shape the narrative, the storyline around impeachment.
For example, Facebook and YouTube, which control a much larger percentage of digital media than anyone realizes are now censoring, flat out censoring any material that mentions the name of the man believed to be the whistleblower. They’re not letting you know who this guy is.
Floyd Brown is co-author of “Big Tech Tyrants.” And he joins us tonight. So Floyd, it seems to me that we’ve moved to a stage a year out from a Presidential election, where the tech monopolies, which really control all of digital journalism in this country, are deciding what facts we’re allowed to know. Why should we not be terrified?
AUTHOR FLOYD BROWN: We should be terrified, and I am terrified. The truth is, is that over half of all news consumed by Americans is consumed on these social media platforms.
And when they can censor the way they’re censoring right now –both Facebook and Google around the name of this whistleblower — it’s chilling. It’s absolutely chilling.
They have such dominant power. In fact, you know, I know that Fox News isn’t saying the name of the whistleblower, but the name of the whistleblower was accidentally said by somebody on your network, and then that was posted on YouTube, which was immediately censored by Google.
So what you have — I’m the publisher of the Western Journal — we have decided to publish the name of the whistleblower, and we’ve done four stories on the whistleblower, and we have 43 million followers on Facebook. I don’t think ten of them have seen those particular stories.
CARLSON: So I mean, look, there’s a legitimate debate here. Let me just say that no one in Fox has told me what to do or not on that issue despite a lot of reporting to the contrary, I haven’t named the guy because I haven’t confirmed it. I can’t find anybody who will confirm it. But as soon as we do, we will I mean, that’s, you know — that’s journalism, and you may disagree.
But the point is this guy, whether he is the whistleblower or not, is at the center of a really important news story, and the average person ought to be able to make up his or her mind on that, but we’re not allowed to, because the tech monopolists won’t allow us. So why is Congress standing back and not saving us from this? Seriously.
BROWN: Yes, well, it’s amazing to me that a lot of the publications that you know, publish things like the Pentagon Papers, and have, you know, published almost all of what WikiLeaks released, and time and time again, they have been more than willing to publicize things that are the deepest secrets of the U.S. government.
But here this one particular secret, they’re so good at keeping the name of this whistleblower out of the media and you know, there’s been major changes in tech since Donald Trump was elected. And those major changes are all around keeping Donald Trump’s — really his ideas and his message — from reaching people.
CARLSON: Yes, I noticed that.
BROWN: I mean, when you look at Twitter, Twitter suppresses Donald Trump’s own tweets. And, you know, Facebook has limited the amount of people —
CARLSON: So this is much greater interference. I mean, this is an interference on a scale that Putin for all of his determination to hack our democracy never even approached or could have imagined. Purportedly American companies are putting a thumb on the scale of democracy and nobody is saying anything about it, why?
BROWN: They should be and Congress should be investigating them.
These companies have all grown incredibly large. You know, in my book, “Big Tech Tyrants,” I talk about the amount of data that has been collected on individuals. Americans don’t have any idea of the volume of information from medical records to you know, what they Google, to what they’re looking at, every single page of the internet that they visit is recorded somewhere.
And, yet people should be rebelling against that. And frankly, it’s a very dangerous situation.
CARLSON: Well, it is.
BROWN: When you see this kind of censorship, this is worse than what you would imagine from Putin and the Soviets.
Or the Russians.
CARLSON: These people are not your friends.
BROWN: No.
CARLSON: Meanwhile, I think Republicans control the Senate. I think it’s not just Josh Hawley, he is not the only U.S. Senator, where are the rest of them? It would be interesting to know.
BROWN: Well, as you know, as I. . .
CARLSON: I am sorry, but my lecturing is as put us over the edge, this this topic is worth being mad about. Thank you for your book. Thank you for coming on tonight. I appreciate it. I wish we had more time.
There’s not much wrong with his survey of Democrat diversity, but I would quibble with his assessment of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand saying she is young at [...]]]>
There’s not much wrong with his survey of Democrat diversity, but I would quibble with his assessment of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand saying she is young at 52. In fact, among her peer group in the US Senate she does qualify as young, since the average age of members as of December 2018 was 61.8 years, a decade her senior: Kirsten is just a kid in Senate years.
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: Howie Carr is a radio host. You can visit him at thehowiecarrshow.com. He is a keen watcher of American politics. We’re happy to have him tonight.
So Howie, let’s go through in order. Some of these candidates, I would say Cory Booker, no one really believed he was going to be the nominee, but who knows, but some of them.,Joe Biden, for example. People were betting big money that he would win. I want to go through the list. You tell me what happened. Joe Biden.
HOWIE CARR: Yes. Well, as Gore Vidal once said, Tucker, “No talent is not enough.” I mean, he just has no political instincts. He showed it again. In the 1970s, he gave all these interviews to newspapers about how he liked working with the segregationist senators. And everybody thought, “Boy, he’s lucky there’s nothing on videotape or audio tape of him saying this.” So what does he do, Tucker?
He goes out and he says it on audio tape and videotape that he likes working with Jim Eastland and Herman Talmadge. I mean, the guy is totally, totally clueless.
He was for the Hyde Amendment before he was against it. He was against reparations before he was for it. He was against busing before he was for it. He is a joke. You’re right.
CARLSON: You’re right, that’s about the crispest summation I can imagine. What about Beto O’Rourke? For a moment, it really did seem like Beto was the guy. I mean, he was our Bobby Kennedy. Now, he’s a joke. Why?
CARR: Well, I think you know, they always talk about the glass ceiling for women in politics, Tucker. I think there’s also a glass ceiling for gigolos. You know, there’s only so far you could rise.
John Kerry married two heiresses, but he never could reach the height. Beto O’Rourke who has changed his name — first name — over the years, obviously, we’ll get to that later on with other candidates. But he married the only child of a guy worth $500 million.
So, I think he’s very soon going to go into his real calling in life, which his son-in-law.
CARLSON: He’s been a good son-in-law. So, what happened to Kirsten Gillibrand?
CARR: Well, here’s another person, Tucker. I’m always a little suspicious of someone who changes their name from when they were in high school or college to when they’re on the ballot.
She used to be — when she was at Dartmouth, she was named Tina Rutnik. Now, her name is Kirsten Gillibrand. I just have suspicions about people like that. She is also somewhat as you say, she has jettisoned everything that she ran for when she was seeking her first seat in Congress in upstate New York.
And, you know, you also shouldn’t tell lies that people can see. I remember when she announced, Tucker, she said, “I’m a young woman.” And I thought to myself, “I’m going to look her up on Google. See how old she is.” She is 52. I’m sorry. You know, maybe. . .
CARLSON: She is older than I am, and I am not young. I totally agree. And quick, what happened to Spartacus? Cory Booker?
CARR: Spartacus is — I’m also suspicious of people who have fictional characters in their life story. You know, I mean, Barack Obama had the composite girlfriend. Cory Booker has this guy T-Bone. He is a fictional drug dealer, and he tries to portray himself as a man of the street, as you said, he went to Yale Law School, he went to Stanford. He is a Rhodes Scholar.
And you know, the other thing, Tucker, as you as you well know, you can’t — TV is a cool medium. You can’t be yelling, and he was up there, Spartacus, “This is my Spartacus moment.” Well, Tucker, as we all know, Spartacus got crucified. I mean, come on. Cory Booker? Who are you kidding?
CARLSON: Yes, watch the end of the movie. Find out what happened to him. Howie, great to see you tonight. Thank you.
CARR: Always a pleasure, Tucker.
One person testifying was Dennis Prager, whose website PragerU has suffered many instances of censorship by Google with no explanation.
PragerU takes on liberal shibboleths, such as the “Nation of Immigrants” myth, which may [...]]]>
One person testifying was Dennis Prager, whose website PragerU has suffered many instances of censorship by Google with no explanation.
PragerU takes on liberal shibboleths, such as the “Nation of Immigrants” myth, which may anger the far left. (Actually, we are a nation of citizens.)
The educational five-minute videos are aimed at a young audience to fill in the historical gaps left by the liberal education establishment, but the restrictions placed on some items are nonsensical: Mr. Prager learned from the first witness, a spokesman from Google, that the video about the Ten Commandments was put under restriction because it mentioned murder — negatively, of course, but those algorithms are strict!
Seriously, you would think that a major web publisher like PragerU would get responsible human attention.
]]>DENNIS PRAGER: I will take just a moment because my opening comment is under five minutes just to respond on the issue of the Ten Commandments video that was a placed on the restricted list by Google; the representative from Google mentioned that a reason that it would be on the restricted list was that it contains mentions of murder, so I was thinking, I have a solution that will I think appeal to Google. I will re-release it as that the Nine Commandments. That should solve the problem of including murder in my discussion of the Ten Commandments.
And as regards the swastika, yes, there is a swastika; it is again in the commandment of do not murder wherein I show that murder — there are people who believe murder is all right even today, and I use the swastika and the hammer and sickle as two examples. I would think we would want young people to associate the swastika with evil; that was why I had a swastika.
It is an honor to be invited to speak in the United States Senate, but I wish I were not so honored. Because the subject of this hearing — Google and YouTube’s (and for that matter Twitter and Facebook’s) suppression of internet content on ideological grounds — threatens the future of America more than any external enemy.
In fact, never in American history has there been as strong a threat to freedom of speech as there is today.
Before addressing this, however, I think it important that you know a bit about me and the organization I co-founded, Prager University, PragerU as it often referred to.
I was born in Brooklyn NY. My late father, Max Prager, was a CPA and an Orthodox Jew who volunteered to serve in the US Navy at the start of World War II. My father’s senior class thesis at the City College of New York was on antisemitism in America. Yet, despite his keen awareness of the subject, he believed that Jews living in America were the luckiest Jews to have ever lived.
He was right. Having taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, written a book on antisemitism, and fought Jew-hatred my whole life, I thank God for living in America.
It breaks my heart that a vast number of young Americans have not only not been taught how lucky they are to be Americans but have been taught either how unlucky they are or how ashamed they should be.
It breaks my heart for them because contempt for one’s country leaves a terrible hole in one’s soul and because ungrateful people always become unhappy and angry people.
And it breaks my heart for America, because no good country can survive when its people have contempt for it. I have been communicating this appreciation of America for 35 years as a radio talk show host, the last 20 in national syndication with the Salem Radio Network, an organization that is a blessing in American life. One reason I started PragerU was to communicate America’s moral purpose and moral achievements, both to young Americans and to young people around the world. With a billion views a year, and with more than half of the viewers under age of 35, PragerU has achieved some success.
My philosophy of life is easily summarized: God wants us to be good. Period. God without goodness is fanaticism, and goodness without God will not long endure. Everything I and PragerU do emanates from belief in the importance of being a good person. That some label us extreme or “haters” only reflects on the character and the broken moral compass of those making such accusations. They are the haters and extremists.
PragerU releases a five-minute video every week. Our presenters include three former prime-ministers, four Pulitzer-Prize winners, liberals, conservatives, gays, blacks, Latinos, atheists, believers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and professors and scientists from MIT, Harvard, Stanford and a dozen other universities.
Do you think the secretary-general of NATO, or the former prime-ministers of Norway, Canada, and Spain, or the late Charles Krauthammer, or Philip Hamburger, distinguished professor of law at Columbia Law School, would make a video for an extreme or hate-filled site? The idea is not only preposterous; it is a smear.
Yet, Google, which owns YouTube has restricted access to 56 of our 320 five-minute videos and to other videos we produce. “Restricted” means that families that have a filter to avoid pornography and violence cannot see that video. It also means that no school or library can show that video.
Google has even restricted access to a video on the Ten Commandments, as we have seen. Yes, the Ten Commandments.
We have repeatedly asked Google why our videos are restricted. No explanation is ever given. But, of course, we know why. Because they come from a conservative perspective.
Liberals and conservatives differ on many issues. But they have always agreed that free speech must be preserved. While the left has never supported free speech, liberals always have. I therefore appeal to liberals to join us in fighting on behalf of America’s crowning glory – free speech. Otherwise, I promise you, one day you will say, “first they came after conservatives, and I said nothing, and then they came after me. And there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Thank you.
On the three-year anniversary of Sarah’s death, Senator Joni Ernst spoke on the Senate floor about the preventable loss, as well as a reintroduction of Sarah’s [...]]]>
On the three-year anniversary of Sarah’s death, Senator Joni Ernst spoke on the Senate floor about the preventable loss, as well as a reintroduction of Sarah’s Law, proposed legislation that would prohibit federal immigration officials from releasing any illegal alien who has committed a violent crime against an American citizen
]]>On Third Anniversary of Her Death, Senator Ernst Re-Introduces Sarah’s Law, Senator Ernst Press Release, Jan 31 2019
Ernst: “We have an obligation to the Root family, and to the American people, to ensure that no person falls victim to this injustice again”
WASHINGTON – On January 31, 2016, the night of her graduation, Sarah Root, a twenty-one year-old Iowan from Council Bluffs, was struck and killed in Omaha, Neb., by Edwin Mejia, who entered the country illegally and was driving drunk – three times over the legal limit.
Today, on the third anniversary of her death, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), along with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and 11 of their colleagues, re-introduced legislation in honor of Sarah, to allow federal law enforcement to detain illegal immigrants criminally charged with killing or seriously injuring another person.
“It is wholly unacceptable that someone who is here illegally and is responsible for the death of another human being is not considered an enforcement priority nor is detained by ICE. We have an obligation to the Root family, and to the American people, to ensure that no person falls victim to this injustice again. Sarah’s Law brings us one step closer to restoring justice in our broken immigration system by allowing ICE to detain and hold these criminals accountable,” said Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA).
“The tragic death of Sarah Root three years ago and the ongoing search for her killer underscore the serious attention border security and immigration enforcement require in America. Sarah’s life was cut short by an undocumented immigrant who disregarded the rule of law and decided to get behind the wheel after drinking. The Obama Administration refused to take custody of Sarah’s killer because it didn’t consider him a priority, allowing him to disappear into the shadows. The Roots have been robbed of their daughter, and at least for now, they have been robbed of justice. Our legislation, named in Sarah’s memory, will ensure that those who harm or kill Americans will be taken into custody and removed while also ensuring that victims and their families get the information they deserve from the government as they pursue justice,” said Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
“Edwin Mejia’s mugshot shouldn’t be on a most wanted poster — Edwin Mejia should be in jail, serving hard time for the life he took and the pain he left behind,” said Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). “Sarah’s Law is common-sense legislation that Sarah and her family deserve to have signed into law. Congress should waste no time sending this legislation to the President’s desk for his signature.” . . .
The history is complicated. Sessions was the first senator to respond to Trump’s seriousness about immigration enforcement and what that could mean, so [...]]]>
The history is complicated. Sessions was the first senator to respond to Trump’s seriousness about immigration enforcement and what that could mean, so the candidate was grateful for the support. In fact, Sessions helped Trump create his position paper on immigration for the campaign.
Below, in happier times, Senator Sessions joined Donald Trump for a campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama, on August 21, 2015.
Sessions got into trouble when after being appointed AG, he announced he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation facing the Trump administration. Surely Sessions knew that problem was coming, yet didn’t warn Trump that he would remove himself from acting as the AG in anything close to that arena. Why not? Basic honesty would require Sessions to tell his boss how he would respond to the Russia situation.
Ann Coulter had a good idea:
Mr. President! Please move Sessions to Homeland and make Kobach AG. WIN-WIN-WIN! Look at the elections! Country is almost gone.
Or Jeff Sessions might run for his old Senate seat, mentioned as unlikely in the report below, but after he rests up and feels better, the senator life might look appealing once again. And he is very popular in Alabama, where he won his 2014 election running unopposed.
After all, Sessions is only 71, which is a kid in Senate years. Here in California, Senator Dianne Feinstein won re-election on Tuesday at age 85.
Tucker Carlson had some comments about the Sessions situation:
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: Well there are always aftershocks immediately after campaigns. The first one of the 2018 mid-terms arrived pretty quickly this afternoon. The president fired his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.
For more than a year, the President has publicly criticized and ridiculed Sessions, so it was not very surprising. Now, the president has assured the ability of replacing Sessions with a new appointment since Republicans held the Senate; clearly, he saw no reason to keep him around.
Now, in theory, going forward, Jeff Sessions could challenge Doug Jones in 2020 to reclaim the Alabama Senate seat that he gave up to serve the president as AG. If he did that, he’d almost certainly win. He’s one of the most popular people in the state.
We asked a source close to Sessions and he said that’s probably not going to happen and Sessions will probably just retire into private life. And if he does that, of course, we will wish him the best. But it will be, and we should say this, a loss for the country.
Donald Trump’s longshot presidential campaign succeeded because he promised what so many voters wanted and, yet, what so few politicians were willing to campaign on because they are cowards.
Among his many promises, the most important was his pledge to reverse decades of deliberate neglect and treat our national borders like they’re real, like our country matters. Nobody understood that message better than Jeff Sessions. He understood it immediately.
He was one of the president’s first and most unwavering supporters, I think the first in the Senate, and it was because of immigration. When the president took office, he gave up an essentially lifetime post representing Alabama to help fulfill Trump’s mission.
Sadly, the country was going another way. Within about five minutes of the 2016 election, Democrats decided their defeat was not about immigration or an abandoned middle class. It was instead, you’ll remember, about Russia and the conspiracy between Vladimir Putin and Trump.
Now, Republicans said they didn’t believe that story. And yet, for some reason, many of them allowed Democrats to reframe the entire political debate in the country and make Russia the single biggest issue in American politics.
But Jeff Sessions did not fall for that. He never let himself get distracted from the mission at hand. While everyone else obsessed over dossiers and FISA warrants, Sessions worried about the mission he was hired to do.
He introduced a zero-tolerance approach to immigration prosecution. He treated illegal entry into the United States as a crime because it is a crime. His DOJ issued new opinions to restrict the exploitation of asylum laws in this country.
He fought to strip federal funding of sanctuary cities. Courts ruled against him but he did everything he could to get those things done. His department accelerated the hiring of immigration judges, didn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s a big deal. More cases can be heard and deportations can take place more quickly.
That’s a service to America and also, by the way, to the people being held. On DACA, Sessions’ refusal to defend that program, which is unconstitutional, really, induced the President to end the program.
Sessions wasn’t just effective at immigration though. He rolled back the Obama Administration’s soft-on-crime policies across the board. He pursued tougher penalties for drug dealers that earned the condemnation not just of liberals but of wealthy libertarians, who decided the war on drugs was a total disaster.
This, at a time, when more people were dying every year of drug ODs than died during all of Vietnam. But the decadent decided, “Oh, it’s immoral to prosecute drug dealing.” OK. The population knew differently because their relatives were dying.
Of course, Sessions also ended the Obama Administration’s harassment of local law enforcement that helped drive a surge in violent crime in major cities. If you live in one, you know what we’re talking about.
Sessions did all of this even as the President who appointed him attacked him in public. Those attacks started more than a year ago after one of the President’s public rebukes. We traveled with Sessions just by chance to El Salvador where he was pushing a fight against MS-13. Sessions made it clear he was in the cabinet to get results and would serve as long as the President would have him.
(Begin El Salvador Clip)
CARLSON: He has said again and again in many different forms throughout this barrage that you should have acted differently, you should have not recused yourself from oversight of the Russia investigation. Do you agree with that?
JEFF SESSIONS: Well, you know, I understand his feelings about it because this has been a big distraction for him. But Tucker, I talked to experts in Department of Justice, people who have trained in that. I’m confident I made the right decision.
CARLSON: You said the criticism was hurtful, and the President has made it really clear that he doesn’t seem to want you to run the Department of Justice. Will you continue to run it?
SESSIONS: Well he can make that clear at any time. I serve at the pleasure of the President.
CARLSON: Yes.
SESSIONS: If he’s — he wants to make a change, he can certainly do so and I would be glad to yield in that circumstance. No doubt about it.
(End video clip)
CARLSON: Sessions wasn’t perfect, obviously. He never seemed like an especially good administrator of a large agency. He sometimes got rolled by his staff. The Russia investigations have shown that FBI and DoJ are deeply politicized. And Sessions never seemed to fully get a handle on the permanent bureaucracy beneath them.
But if you take three steps back, here’s what you see. In an Administration beset with constant leaks and infighting, and people looking out for themselves and only themselves, Sessions was maybe one of the very few people who never forgot why he was there, to make America a better country. We can only hope that his replacement will do the same.
Interestingly, the phrase “through no fault of their own” referring to DACA recipients was heard often during the dialogue. It occurred in longer phrases like “young people who were brought here through no fault of [...]]]>
Interestingly, the phrase “through no fault of their own” referring to DACA recipients was heard often during the dialogue. It occurred in longer phrases like “young people who were brought here through no fault of their own” as senators suggested the DACA illegal aliens should receive full citizenship — even though the scenario looks like another sovereignty fiasco reminiscent of 1986.
We are reminded daily that most DACA squatters were transported to the US as minors by their parents, but that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to keep the benefits stolen by mom and dad. If your father was a bank robber, I don’t think you get to keep the loot.
The senators kept hammering on the alleged innocence of the “kids” — another frequent term even though the average age of DACAs is 24.
As Senator Chuck Grassley described the legislation, he observed that “. . .our amendment provides a generous and permanent solution for up to 1.8 million DACA or DACA-eligible recipients.” [WATCH]
But he had nothing “generous” for American citizens, only another Washington hit against national sovereignty.
Last year, Senator Tom Cotton submitted the RAISE Act, a bill to cut legal immigration in half, along with Senator Purdue. Now he is on board the DACA amnesty train. In his seven-minute statement on Monday, he used the magic phrase “no fault of their own” three times:
]]>The bad news [...]]]>
The bad news is that increased enforcement has not eliminated returnees. Breitbart noted (6/22), Deported MS-13 Gangsters Keep Sneaking Back Across U.S. Border. Apparently we need to build jails that are less comfy than the accommodations back in their El Salvador homeland.
MS-13 gangsters love the crime opportunities that America affords. like terrorizing communities on Long Island with murders of young people.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on June 21 to explore the issue: “The MS-13 Problem: Investigating Gang Membership, its Nexus to Illegal Immigration, and Federal Efforts to End the Threat”. The entire hearing may be watched on C-SPAN.
Chairman Charles Grassley gave a tough opening statement, including a mention that President Obama knowingly admitted MS-13 gangsters into the country.
]]>Grassley Statement on the MS-13 Gang Problem, Its Nexus to Illegal Immigration and Federal Efforts to End the Threat, June 21, 2017
The topic of today’s hearing involves the MS-13 crisis that’s growing and spreading in communities across our nation.
The atrocities of these criminals are not new. This group has existed since the 1980s, and has made a reputation for itself as a perpetrator of extreme—and often gruesome—violence. This organization has been dubbed the world’s “most dangerous gang,” and some say it could be a terrorist organization. But, you wouldn’t expect anything less from a group whose motto is “kill, rape, and control.”
Unfortunately, over the past two years, this terrifying motto has become a vicious reality for many communities across our nation. So far this year, the gang has been publicly linked to dozens of high-profile killings, rapes, and assaults across the country, from the Washington D.C. metro area to Houston, Texas. Undoubtedly, there are many more that simply haven’t been reported.
Let me give the Committee just a few examples of this group’s absolute brutality and inhumanity.
• MS-13 has been responsible for nearly 20 murders on Long Island since 2010, with victims including high-school age children as young as 16. The group is also considered responsible for an additional 32 violent acts, including 8 attempted murders.
• In January, two gang members, both of whom are unauthorized immigrants, lured a 22 year old man from New Jersey to Maryland with the promise of sex, where they butchered him and left him in the woods near Gaithersburg, MD to rot.
• In March, two MS-13 members were charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting three teenage girls for several weeks, and eventually murdering one of them in what has been described as a “satanic ritual.”
• In March and April, a string of MS-13 murders occurred across southern Virginia, with perhaps the most graphic being the murder of 17-year-old Raymond Wood. According to reports. Wood’s body was found face down in the road, and the MS-13 suspects had cut his hands and throat before stabbing him over 16 times.
While these examples are horrifying, they are far from isolated. According to the Department of Justice, MS-13 regularly conducts gang activity in at least forty states and the District of Columbia, and their violence touches nearly every major community in America.
What’s even more troubling than the recent surge of MS-13 gang violence is the fact the organization has a new, and more disturbing, recruitment strategy: targeting unaccompanied alien children. Let me tell you the story of one such child who was targeted by MS-13, and ultimately lost his life to their violence.
As The Washington Post reported last Friday afternoon, Danny Centeno-Miranda was just 16 years old when he was apprehended at the Border. He traveled to the United States without his parents, and like other minors, he was sent by the federal government to live with a sponsor—in this case an uncle—in an American community.
Danny was enrolled in a local school, where he was, according to reports, “sucked into” tensions between MS-13 and rival gangs. This tension eventually led MS-13 gang leaders in El Salvador to order Danny’s assassination, and he was shot to death at a school bus stop one morning.
Danny’s tragic story is an all too common example of MS-13’s ruthless targeting of children. It is well-known that MS-13 actively targets and recruits children as young as 8 years old. Unaccompanied minors are particularly prime candidates for gang recruitment. Their illegal status and Central American heritage alone make them vulnerable targets for MS-13 recruitment efforts. While their illegal status and Central American heritage are a key factor in MS-13’s targeting, without a doubt the failures of the current system for handling these children is also to blame. The current system is fraught with abuse, systematic errors, and a lack of effective cooperation.
Today we will hear from the agencies that share responsibility for allowing these children to fall through the cracks and become targets for MS-13 recruitment. To help us get to the bottom of this crisis, we have asked representatives from the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security to testify today.
Independent reports have found that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has allowed many MS-13 gang members to enter the United States. According the Whistleblower documents obtained by Chairman Johnson, the Obama Administration knowingly released at least 16 known MS-13 members into communities after their apprehension. Many of these members were UACs.
Once UACs are apprehended, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is supposed to find these children an appropriate sponsor. Often, these sponsors themselves are in the country illegally, and many of them have criminal backgrounds. Because of the lack of post-release oversight, many children have been placed in dangerous situations, including illegal working environments and in some cases even prostitution rings.
This precarious combination of events—trafficking to and apprehension at the United States border, and placement with inappropriate sponsors— makes UACs vulnerable to gang recruitment. With promises of a cultural community and an escape from often harrowing and isolating living conditions at home, MS-13 has become an attractive option for too many minors. In spite of ample evidence that UACs are a prime target for MS-13 recruitment, none of the government agencies here today have any statistics about how many of the more than 10,000 gang members in our country entered and were recruited as UACs. The end result of the government’s total failure to establish an efficient process and meaningful oversight of the placement of these children has led to the current MS-13 crisis. Today’s hearing is a first step in plotting a path forward to end it.
Throughout the course of this hearing we’re going to explore how CBP and ORR can better cooperate to ensure the safe and proper placement of UACs, and to decimate MS-13 recruitment incentives. We’re also going to hear what steps Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Justice are taking to eliminate this organization on the back end.
At the end of this hearing, I fully expect the government witnesses to have given this Committee a better understanding of what needs to be—and must be—done to end this threat. Too many innocent American and immigrant lives are at stake.
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The two senators held a press conference to discuss the legislation. The [...]]]>
The two senators held a press conference to discuss the legislation. The initial description given by Senator Cotton was direct and well presented:
SENATOR TOM COTTON: Senator Purdue and I are unveiling what we’ve named the RAISE Act which stands for Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment. The title should give you an idea of why we’re offering this bill. Over the last 40 years we’ve seen a huge increase in immigration. As you can see in this first chart, in the past 25 years alone we’re running an average of one million immigrants per year which is far above historical norm. It’s like adding the population of Montana every year or the population of Arkansas every three years.
As the second chart shows, only one out of every 15 immigrants is coming here for employment reasons. If we really needed all of these people because of their skills, because they help the economy grow, they be coming here on say, an EB-1 or an EB-2 visa, but they’re not. Instead we let them in without consideration of our workforce’s needs. Put those two together and what do you get?
A sharp decline in wages for working Americans, as you can see here. Those with college and professional degrees are doing just fine but those with a high school diploma have seen their wages fall by two percent since 1979 and for those without one, it’s 17 percent. Now, is automation a factor? Is globalization? Sure, but there’s no denying this generation-long surge in low-skilled immigration has hurt blue-collar wages. It’s pulling the rug out from underneath them and unless we reverse this trend, we’re going to create a near-permanent underclass for whom the American Dream is always just out of reach.
Senator Purdue and I think it’s time for our immigration system to start working for American workers. The RAISE Act would help increase wages by returning immigration levels to their historical norms and rebalancing the system toward merit-based immigration. There are three main parts of the bill.
First, we reprioritize immediate family members: we keep immigration preferences for spouses and unmarried minor children of citizens and green card holders but eliminate them for extended relatives like parents, adult siblings and adult children. Second, we eliminate the 50,000 visas and the diversity lottery which is rampant with fraud provides no discernible economic for humanitarian benefits and doesn’t even promote diversity. Third, we limit the number of green cards offered to refugees to 50,000 per year which is in line with historical averages under Presidents Bush and Obama and consistent with President Trump’s recent guidance.
The net effect will be the cut annual immigration in half from 1,000,000 to 500,000 green cards per year. This approach is broadly consistent with past reform measures and it would begin to move us towards a more merit-based system like Canada and Australia have. Most important, it would promote higher wages on which working Americans can build a future whether your family came over on the Mayflower or whether you just took the oath of citizenship.
Legal immigration has been Ted Kennedy’s evil legacy to America: based on family ties, the policy has multiplied the numbers of foreigners to the point where today more than 43 million immigrants reside here. Unskilled third-worlders have created ethnic barrios where English is rarely spoken. Miami — once a standard US city before criminal Cubans were welcomed by Jimmy Carter in the disastrous Mariel Boatlift — is now called the “capital of Latin America.” Much of California has been similarly diversified via legal and illegal immigration.
Immigration to the United States has grown explosively for decades, now accounting for 1.5 million entrants annually. There is no need for masses of additional workers in today’s economy, with automation increasingly performing jobs once done by humans.
The RAISE Act is aimed at helping US workers, but trimming total immigration would have many benefits indeed. NumbersUSA is enthusiastic and urges concerned citizens to contact their elected representatives to voice support.
Here’s the press release from Senator Cotton’s office about the legislation:
]]>Cotton, Perdue Unveil the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, February 7, 2017
Washington, D.C. – Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Senator David Perdue (R-Georgia) today unveiled the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, legislation that will help raise American workers’ wages by restoring legal immigration levels to their historical norms and rebalancing the system toward employment-based visas and immediate-family household members. The RAISE Act would lower overall immigration to 637,960 in its first year and to 539,958 by its tenth year-a 50 percent reduction from the 1,051,031 immigrants who arrived in 2015.
“It’s time our immigration system started working for American workers,” said Senator Cotton.”The RAISE Act would promote higher wages on which all working Americans can build a future-whether your family came over here on the Mayflower or you just took the oath of citizenship.”
“We are taking action to fix some of the shortcomings in our legal immigration system,” said Senator Perdue. “Returning to our historically normal levels of legal immigration will help improve the quality of American jobs and wages.” Specifically, the RAISE Act would:
• Prioritize Immediate Family Households. The RAISE Act would retain immigration preferences for the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents while eliminating preferences for certain categories of extended and adult family members.
• Eliminate Outdated Diversity Visa Lottery. The Diversity Lottery is plagued with fraud, advances no economic or humanitarian interest, and does not even deliver the diversity of its namesake. The RAISE Act would eliminate the 50,000 visas arbitrarily allocated to this lottery.
• Place Responsible Limit on Permanent Residency for Refugees. The RAISE Act would limit refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 per year, in line with a 13-year average.
Worse, amnesty-hack Repubs are determined to shred US borders and sovereignty — do the names Jeff Flake, [...]]]>
Worse, amnesty-hack Repubs are determined to shred US borders and sovereignty — do the names Jeff Flake, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio ring a bell? The traitorous Gang of Eight Republicans remain in the Senate to continue working for amnesty for lawbreakers and increased legal immigration, only the sell-out will now be more sensitively framed as kindness to young DREAMers, etc:
The problem is that amnesty is psychologically wrong. As Senator Grassley remarked following his vote for Reagan’s amnesty, “You know what I found out? If you reward illegality, you get more of it.”
Furthermore, one amnesty of millions in 1986 was an instance of misplaced generosity (where the promised enforcement never occurred) but a second amnesty constitutes a pattern that can never be erased. A second mass reward of lawbreaking foreigners means that immigration anarchy won’t be fixed, ever, because the word will spread across the world that America is still the stupid-generous open-borders soft touch it ever was.
And those who advocate “enforcement then amnesty” miss the point that the eventual reward for lawbreakers will be the overriding message and foreigners will continue to keep coming because the magnet of American jobs remains.
Don’t think law and borders have been achieved with the election of President Trump. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
]]>Trump’s Border Wall, Deportation Plans Face Pushback From GOP, Bloomberg News, December 30, 2016
Donald Trump’s pledges to deport undocumented immigrants and build a U.S.-Mexico border wall helped fuel Republicans’ surprising election victories, but they now face growing challenges from fellow party members.
Three Republican senators are working with Democrats to shield about 750,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation if Trump cancels a 2012 order from President Barack Obama that let them stay in the U.S.
Lawmakers want to “ensure that children who were brought here by their parents, through no fault of their own, are able to stay and finish their education and continue to contribute to society,” said Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are joining him on a measure drafted by the No. 2 Democratic leader, Dick Durbin of Illinois, that will be introduced after the new Congress convenes Jan. 3.
Trump’s campaign was largely powered by his get-tough stance on immigration. A Pew Research Center poll in August found that 79 percent of Trump voters want a border wall, compared with 38 percent of all registered voters.
But among lawmakers in Congress, the desire to build a wall along the entire 1,933-mile border with Mexico has evaporated. Republicans in both chambers instead support more fencing, border patrol agents, drones and other resources to curb illegal entry. House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said he’ll offer a bill with some of those steps in January.
“Starting next month, the people are going to get what they asked for,” the Texas Republican said Dec. 9 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, contending that the “border security surge” plan is as good as a wall.
That may not be good enough for Trump, who pushed back after House Speaker Paul Ryan said Dec. 4 on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that “conditions on the ground determine what you need” in different areas of the border.
“We’re going to work on the wall, Paul,” Trump told a cheering audience when the two appeared together Dec. 13 in Wisconsin on the president-elect’s thank-you tour. “We’re going to build the wall, OK? Believe me.”
In a Time magazine interview in early December, Trump didn’t back off a promise to cancel Obama’s executive orders on immigration. But he also said he’ll seek a solution on young undocumented immigrants — known as “Dreamers” after failed legislation to protect them — that will “make people happy and proud.”
McCain in Mexico
Among the pivotal Republican senators who disagree with Trump is John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. McCain highlighted his split with Trump’s approaches during a Dec. 20-21 trip to Mexico, where he discussed the U.S. relationship with its southern neighbor with Mexico’s Interior Minister and other government officials.While there, McCain said he holds the view of most Senate Democrats that any border security changes should be part of a broader immigration measure to address the status of some or all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. He helped author a immigration bill along those lines in 2013 that the Senate passed but the House didn’t take up.
He also emphasized the need for a secure border, but didn’t directly affirm Trump’s call for an actual wall.
“I believe that we need to have significant improvements in border enforcement, but I believe the way that you do that is technology primarily,” McCain said.
Mexican officials provided some of their own pressure after Trump’s repeated calls for that country to pay for fortification at the border.
Foreign Minister
Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu met with Ryan in Washington on Dec. 14 to discuss the U.S.-Mexico relationship. She also met with Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, to discuss Mexico’s support for the bipartisan bill protecting younger undocumented immigrants.Most Republicans in Congress, particularly those in the House, favor securing the border before changing the immigration law. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California has said McCaul’s border-security ideas are a “good place to start.”
McCaul in 2015 advanced a measure through his committee that would have required the Department of Homeland Security to achieve operational control of the Southwest border in five years, based on a sector-by-sector analysis. The agency’s political appointees would be denied pay raises and bonuses if the bill’s goals weren’t met.
He has indicated his new proposal will be more extensive, coming under a Republican president who sees the border as a bigger priority.
“We must start with an immediate border security ‘surge,’” McCaul said at the Heritage Foundation. “We have started to work on emergency plans in Congress to build the tough array of barriers we need along the border, close all gaps and defend American sovereignty.”
Israel’s Fence
In the Senate, Homeland Security and Government Reform Chairman Ron Johnson says he isn’t in a hurry. He says he wants to wait until the confirmation of retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, and to work with him on a proposal.In the meantime, Johnson recently returned from a trip to Israel to discuss border security with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and examine nearly 160 miles of steel fencing that separates Israel from the Sinai. Johnson estimates it might cost the U.S. about $4 billion to build something similar along portions of the border with Mexico, and wants to consider whether Israel’s approach offers a model.
“I’m interested in passing a bill that will actually work,” said Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican. “It may take a little more time and a little more thought.”
Regardless of the pace of the broader debate, Congress could add funds for border security to the next spending bill to keep the U.S. government open after current funding expires April 28.
Money From Mexico
While Trump promised to make Mexico pay for the changes, few lawmakers see that as a realistic goal — at least not initially.Representative Mark Meadows, the new chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said that while most members of his group will want to offset the cost with reductions in other spending, a border plan without spending offsets won’t lose many of their votes.
Freedom Caucus members see border security as a “major problem, and the American people want it built,” Meadows of North Carolina said in an interview. “We can probably move the funds from something that is not paid-for to the wall.”
The last significant action on immigration was in 2013, when the Senate voted 68-32 for its plan that included a path to legal residency and $46 billion to secure the U.S-Mexico border. The bill would have doubled the Border Patrol’s size by adding 20,000 agents, required 700 miles of border fencing, and added unmanned drones to help police the border. The House didn’t consider the bill.